10 Yetis Examples of Good and Bad Public Relations - Friday 7th September 2012

Sep 7th 2012

Lloyd here with today's Good and Bad PR.

Good PR

Prince Harry, what a trooper. Making all the headlines recently with his naked Las Vegas hotel room partying, he's now back in the news with his redeployment to Afghanistan. I don't imagine the top brass had Vegas in mind when sending out the Army Apache pilot, but it comes at a fortuitous time for the Prince. Sticklers for royal tradition affronted by his shenanigans might thaw and be more accepting of his antics as a young man off to war. I'm a huge fan of Harry. His charity work, cheeky chappy attitude and determined military career are all admirable traits, which I don't think cutting loose now and again can mar too much. Good luck Harry!

Public Relations

Bad PR

Bad PR goes to Nokia and their new Lumia phone. As if competing with the huge success of Apple wasn't bad enough, they've shot themselves in the foot with a marketing gaffe over the camera on their new phone. Sharp-eyed watchers of a promotional video spotted a reflection that showed a photographer in a van with a large professional camera filming the footage instead of using the phone itself. Nokia had been pinning a lot on the hope that the Optical Image Stabilisation of their PureView camera would help them compete. Already fighting general indifference towards the phone and a humiliating fall in share price on its unveiling, this is a further embarrassing episode. I bet bosses are fuming.